Hatred Cannot Make Society Better

I was among the earliest batch of Chinese netizens; I started going online in 1998. I once had three five-digit QQ numbers, and the QQ number I still use today is still five-digit — all of which prove that I am a "veteran-level" netizen.

I have a deep understanding of the development of Chinese online public opinion.

Some people may think I have a certain name now, but actually as early as more than twenty years ago I was already a moderately well-known author on several BBSes. As I grew older, I increasingly disliked the limelight and retreated to the sidelines; ironically, my current fame cannot compare with the past.

In my student days I was always a prominent figure on campus; this experience made me prematurely tired of fame and fortune — I knew when I was young that being famous was not a good thing. Because my name was too well known, I was framed by many people as early as seventh grade.

So I grew accustomed to quietly retiring after a pen name (we used to call it an ID) gained some fame, then switching to another pen name to write. As a result, many of my pen names became famous, but people did not know they were all the same person behind them.

When I wrote under each pen name, I encountered all kinds of criticism and mob attacks. No matter what I wrote about, someone was sure to argue; that is the greatest feature of the internet age. The internet has limited约束, and malicious abuse online is countless. I remember twenty years ago we called attacking each other online "p拍砖" (throwing bricks); the term was once popular on Tianya Club.

Besides "brick-throwing" there was also human flesh search (doxxing). Over the past twenty-plus years, Chinese internet has produced many notorious doxxing incidents, some even driving persecuted netizens to suicide — this is cyberbullying. Cyberbullying is a global social problem of the internet age; it exists not only in China. I remember Monica Lewinsky also came forward to urge people to say no to cyberbullying after suffering from it.

Some people may not be used to the current online environment, feeling that the internet is full of hostility and emotional writing. I would say that Chinese internet has been this way for its entire twenty-plus years, not just today. I have developed strong immunity to this phenomenon; after taking so many bricks, I am no longer afraid of being thrown bricks.

We Chinese should be grateful to the internet for giving us a chance to express ourselves. For a long time our society has been too monolithic; now we are in a historical period of transition from a monolithic to a pluralistic society. The greatest feature of a pluralistic society is that all kinds of voices exist; we should not feel the world is dark just because there are voices opposing ours online.

If we follow people's method of dividing factions, I might belong to the "right" — though I myself deny any factional leanings. Many of my articles have been abused by netizens who slap me with the label "little pink"; recently several of my articles reached "100,000+" reads, and those scolding me grew even more numerous — at least tens of thousands.

After all, as a veteran netizen who has surfed the internet for twenty years, I have the psychological resilience not to take this abuse seriously. But I am also tired of getting drawn into these online arguments; past experience tells me they are a waste of time.

However, I personally do not think those who scold me are in the wrong, and especially do not think they are morally corrupt or depraved; they too have the freedom to express their own views. I am unwilling to slap them with labels like "50-center" or "little pink," nor do I regard them as far-left forces; the great majority of them scold me from their own heartfelt views rather than because someone told them to. These views come from their own lived experience; just as they cannot understand my lived experience, I cannot understand theirs. We fail to understand each other only because we have different lives, not for any other reason.

I close comments on my articles only because I do not want to waste my time on the meaningless business of being scolded. Peaceful and productive discussion exists only between friends with solid friendships; it is not suited to the internet. The online world is just this noisy; there is no quiet岁月静好.

But if one is frightened by all the online quarreling and thinks society will therefore regress to the Cultural Revolution, that is pure groundless anxiety. For over twenty years the online environment has been just this noisy, and society has not regressed to an era of smash-and-grab. On the contrary, through all these online debates, China has genuinely been developing toward a pluralistic society.

The greatest feature of multiculturalism is that all kinds of voices exist; in the end, all kinds of people learn to game and coexist through struggle. I once wrote an article on a forum titled, I think, "Tolerance Is the Foundation of Multicultural Coexistence" — time has passed and I have forgotten the title; there was, of course, a pile of brick-throwing and abuse beneath it. If I open comments on this article, there will be another pile of curses.

Many people believe their own views are the only correct ones, and that those who oppose them should either accept their views or perish automatically. This is because pluralism in our society has only just begun; people have not yet fully adapted to it.

Both the so-called left and the so-called right are now moving toward an extreme — hoping the other side vanishes, stops speaking, and even hoping to use state power to restrict the other's speech. This reveals that everyone essentially wants a one-man show.

We should be more tolerant of voices that criticize us and accept people whose opinions differ from ours. Do not keep putting hats and labels on people, standing on the moral high ground waving the moral club. If we could go a step further and stand in others' shoes to think about why they have voices different from ours, that would of course be better. If you cannot stand someone's abuse and attacks, just block them.

Tolerating multiple voices in society is not just the government's responsibility; it is every citizen's responsibility, and more specifically, each of our own.

Too little tolerance breeds hatred, and hatred cannot make our society better. Chinese history is a magnificent war chronicle; we often say the Chinese nation loves peace, but this is not true. Our nation has experienced countless large and small wars; few other peoples in the world have been as constantly at war as we have.

What has war brought us? Generation after generation of Chinese have fought and bled; have we gained a good life? Have we built a society that satisfies the Chinese? It seems not. On the contrary, repeated massive destruction has kept the Chinese people in poverty.

I see some people constantly talking about the "broad proletariat"; this phrase is truly shameful. We claim 5,000 years of civilization and 71 years since the founding of New China; after all this time, if our people are still the "broad proletariat" rather than mostly well-off property owners, that means our whole nation has nothing to be proud of. Our people have not accumulated wealth over all this time and are still just proletarians — is that not disgraceful?

So we must learn to move forward through peaceful contest; everyone should gradually adapt to a pluralistic society, starting with themselves, constantly raising their tolerance through peaceful struggle and contest while promoting social progress.

Tolerate different voices; do not keep slapping hats and swinging clubs at those who oppose us. Even less should we incite hatred and manufacture confrontation. In the end, this country is the home of all Chinese; we have the right to live on this land, and so do others. We have freedom of expression, and so do others. Everyone's cognition and way of loving country differ; do not force your views on others. No one deserves to be the heavenly father representing absolute truth.

The essence of a pluralistic society is that everyone speaks their own piece; the various social strata gradually refine social institutions through contest to achieve the greatest degree of harmonious coexistence. This goal cannot be achieved in a day; we can participate in this contest and construction — because institutional building concerns everyone's interests and security, so don't talk that nonsense about being a wise bystander. A single natural or man-made disaster is enough to shrink everyone's wealth; at such a time, not even allowing people to voice a little discontent is pure bullshit.

But we also cannot suppress others' voices; at most, those with different paths need not walk together. We part ways with those who disagree. They strive for what they want, we strive for what we want. From the perspective of big history, society will surely progress through contest, not regress.

Now many people talk about education in love and the spirit of love, believing that a lack of love education has caused some extreme phenomena in society. But what is love? Love is not just mutual recognition and appreciation; it is also mutual tolerance and compromise. Love is not seeing others' shortcomings and smashing them with one blow; that is not love, that is hatred.

I have lived through several sensational cyberbullying incidents on the Chinese internet and witnessed countless netizens mobbing individuals they deemed morally depraved — in real life these were very pitiful people. Early on Tianya Club some patients raised funds online, only to be questioned by many; some committed suicide after their personal privacy was ripped to shreds by netizens, while others lived for the rest of their lives under the shadow of cyberbullying. Those who launched these attacks all felt themselves righteous, never imagining that their hands were covered in blood. This is the end result of inciting hatred.

I also remember that Tianya Club once had a column called "Xintian Zhuxue" (Trust-the-Sky Student Aid), a project launched by a netizen called "Xintian Jinyou" (Trust-the-Sky, Journeying Cautiously); I followed it. I have told his story before, and I want to tell it again today. After this man was deeply shaken by poverty in some backward regions, he raised funds to help them build schools and develop education.

But as he built schools, villagers often beat him in the hope of profiting from the construction. Some were indignant on his behalf and told him not to help such ungrateful people. He only said lightly: "That is precisely why I must help them."

He wrote an article titled "Butterflies Cannot Fly Across the Sea." Its gist was that people in these poor, backward regions, lacking education, had fallen into the situation where "poor mountains and bad waters breed unruly people." They are like butterflies without the ability to fly across the sea. Limited by their personal horizons, they do all sorts of things that outrage others; these are not their fault, but fate's unfairness to them, which is why he wants to help them.

This breadth of mind commands my deepest admiration; his spirit moved many, and we supported him all the way in his charity. I think this is true love: we need not only to love our relatives and friends and those who agree with us, but also to tolerate and help those who oppose us.

Recently I read a book called

Spillover

, by a well-known American virologist who went to the poorest parts of Africa to do virology research. As a virologist, he knew that hunters who slaughter wild animals are most likely to be infected by viruses in the process, and that these hunters then transmit the virus to others, ultimately causing human epidemics.

But he did not condemn these hunters. He saw another side: people in these backward regions have a hard livelihood; hunting wild animals is the only way they can survive. He hoped that people in developed regions would aid those in backward regions, help them escape poverty and hunger, so they would no longer have to survive by hunting.

This breadth of spirit is also beyond what many people today can match. After the plague, many people condemned those who hunt wild animals and discriminated against people in outbreak regions; but only scientists at the front lines know that the real solution is to eliminate poverty and develop education.

Incited hatred has never played a good role in human history. Not to mention Nazism and Japanese militarism; Tocqueville's

The Old Regime and the French Revolution

even shows us that after the French Revolution — so highly praised by people today — France's old regime was not changed but became even more severe. Only after people reflected on the Revolution itself, and as society contested while reconciling, did a tolerant, rational social system gradually take shape.

Humanity has lived through World Wars I and II, and most of us do not want a third. We should learn from history to promote stable social development through peaceful, rational contest, rather than repeatedly hoping to eliminate dissenters through extreme means.

Such contest has always objectively existed in all societies; the various strata have never stopped arm-wrestling. Dignified language calls this reform; in reality it is different strata vying for a larger share of benefit through contest. Civilized contest benefits rather than harms society, because it pushes society toward greater justice and fairness.

We should encourage civilized contest in society and encourage the existence of differing opinions. We cannot think and solve problems with revolutionary thinking every day; if every problem were solved with revolutionary thinking, society would never know peace, the people would forever remain proletarians, and we would never live a dignified and comfortable life.